Saudi Arabia’s corruption purge snares US$33b of net worth
RIYADH: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s crackdown on some of Saudi Arabia’s richest and most powerful men has put US$33 billion (RM139.59 billion) of personal wealth at risk.
The stunning series of arrests has implicated three of the country’s richest people, including Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who’s No. 50 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index ranking of the world’s 500 richest people with US$19 billion.
Also being held are the kingdom’s second- and fifth-wealthiest people, as well as a travel-agency mogul and Bakr Binladin, a scion of a one of the country’s biggest construction empires.
The arrests reportedly have led the government to freeze the accounts of the more than three dozen men.
ALWALEED BIN TALAL (US$19 billion)
Owns stakes in Twitter Inc, News Corp and Citigroup Inc.
Made his first billion dollars trading land and acting as a point man for multinational firms seeking local contracts.
MOHAMMED AL AMOUDI (US$10.1 billion)
Controls an empire that has investments across Africa, Europe and Saudi Arabia.
Assets include Sweden’s largest oil refiner, Preem AB and real estate.
SALEH KAMEL (US$3.7 billion)
Self-made finance and healthcare entrepreneur started running bus services for haj pilgrims and later founded the kingdom’s first driving school.
Regarded as one of the pioneers of Islamic finance, which is today a US$2.2 trillion industry.
Kamel founded Manama-based Albaraka Banking Group, an Islamic bank with US$23.4 billion in assets at end of last year.
NASSER AL TAYYAR (US$600 million)
The 60-year-old amassed a fortune that’s tied to publicly traded Al Tayyar Travel Group Holding Co, one of Saudi Arabia’s largest travel agencies.
The company books airfare and hotel rooms, and also organises specialised travel, like foreign medical trips, and haj and umrah pilgrimages to Islam’s holy cities.
BAKR BINLADIN
The brother of Osama Bin Laden heads one of the kingdom’s largest construction companies, Saudi Binladin Group.
The firm has built some of the kingdom’s biggest and most notable projects, from the expansion of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, to airports and King Abdullah Economic City.
Two of the four Saudis on the Bloomberg index haven’t been detained in the sweep: hotel magnate Mohamed bin Issa Al Jaber, who has an US$8.3 billion fortune and splits his time between Paris, London, Vienna and Jeddah, and Prince Sultan Bin Mohammed Al Kabeer, the biggest individual shareholder in food processor Almarai Company, who has US$4.7 billion. Bloomberg